Canucks fans are all too aware of how David Booth spent the NHL lockout. It was a bone of contention for quite some time, exacerbated by his season-ending injury that cut short any possibility of quieting the controversy with his play on the ice.

But it turns out took a break from enraging liberal-minded Vancouverites in order to enlarge the minds of some teenaged Michiganders. Booth recorded a video for Lutheran High School North, his alma mater in Macomb, Michigan, teaching the students the Word of the Week — “nefarious” — and it’s both horribly awkward and outrageously hilarious.

I’ve seen a lot of mean-spirited attacks of Booth’s intelligence over the past year, but this video completely removes the teeth from those attacks. I mean, you can continue to make fun of his intelligence if you want, I suppose, but considering that’s what he’s doing to himself throughout the entire video, it would be a wasted effort.

Right from the beginning, Booth makes himself the target of every joke, from insisting that the Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language has the wrong definition for MacDonald (It’s a restaurant) to saying that he’s the best person to do the word of the week because he knows “probably over 500 words.”

But then he starts just listing words he knows — parachute, spaghetti, desk, I know “dog,” that’s another one I know – and I just lose it. That is some high-quality comedy.

As mentioned, the actual word of the week that he’s teaching the students is “nefarious.” I love the way he says “nefarious” when he first introduces it, giving the “A” a drawn out, supervillain-esque “ah” sound while he bugs out his eyes. Now that is the proper way to say “nefarious.”

Booth’s go-to example for “nefarious” is a good one: Adolf Hitler. Well, not a good one in a moral sense, but in an appropriate-to-the-subject sense.

As Booth is running down the definition of “nefarious, he horribly mispronounces “villainous,” somehow inserting a “T” into the word: villatinous, pronounced like “gelatinous.” It makes me wonder just how small the print is in his dictionary that he’s obviously reading from just off-screen. Instead of re-recording it and editing out the mistake, he just leaves it in, because it’s funny. He even riffs on it later in the video, intentionally mispronouncing it three different ways.

Then came the part that made me literally laugh out loud, though I’m hard-pressed to explain why. Trying to come up with more examples of nefarious things, he lands on a rabbit. A rabbit that “eats all the grass and doesn’t leave any grass for all the other rabbits.”

“That rabbit would be nefarious.”

I don’t…I can’t…I have no response to that. He’s not wrong. That would be a very nefarious rabbit. Extremely wicked. Evil. Sinister.

Booth also has a positive message to the kids. “Bullies are nefarious, in my opinion…Be the opposite of nefarious. Be un-nefarious.” Just ignore his usage of the “re-” prefix immediately after and the word “irregardless.” Yikes.

Finally, Booth calls into question the entire idea of just doing a Word of the Week. After all, as he points out, they’ll only “learn 52 words all year,” while he does “words of the second,” which means he’ll learn 31,536,000 words in a year. That calls into question his earlier claim of knowing “probably over 500 words,” but to be fair, 31,536,000 is over 500.

You want me to name another one? Air. That’s another word I know. Corn. Blows your mind.

This is the best video ever.

Stick-tap to Tumblrer shaneobrien55 for bringing this video to light and to @deniseblaustein for passing it along to us.

26 comments

kkenahora

May 10, 2013

It was an unfortunate set of circumstances that derailed David Booth.
Through my lens…as a season ticket holder I watched particular players and their entey to the Canucks roster.
Booth exudes grit …speed…and skill..AND unyielding effort to get in the net area…which is something few other Canucks Jerseys have dared.. (certainly nit enough…).

Canucks have lots of skills…still do…yet the grit level is underwhelming…from most perspectives…The pressure is on upper management to effect change.
The holier than thou contracts impede this process.
One contract too extended for too much to too many.

The winds of change are upon us…I miss The Caotains Room…What a bummer..!

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Rating: +9 (from 9 votes)

Brian

May 10, 2013

50 gold stars. Was I the only one expecting him to get a paper cut, then thunder “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood!” while firing the book at the wall?

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Rating: +8 (from 8 votes)

John

May 10, 2013

Why do all the Canucks suddenly become comic geniuses – purposely or otherwise – right before they leave the team?

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Rating: +9 (from 9 votes)

nick

May 11, 2013

Yeah, what’s the deal? Look for Keith Ballard to do an episode of Between Two Ferns next…

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Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Chinook

May 10, 2013

Whats also funny – calling Macdonald a restaurant.

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Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)

5th line winger

May 10, 2013

Brilliant. That is all.

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Rating: +4 (from 4 votes)

kavi36

May 10, 2013

Thanks to Booth I learned that my pronunciation of nefarious was completely off. Also, that I should watch out for all those nefarious rabbits. Damn bunnies. Always eating all the grass… Thanks Professor Booth!

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Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)

Daniel Wagner

May 10, 2013

There are two pronunciations of nefarious, as far as I know, so you might have been pronouncing it correctly!

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Rating: +2 (from 4 votes)

akidd

May 10, 2013

i’ve only ever the the pronunciation, ‘ne-fair-ious’. a quick check in the ol’ e-dictionary and yup, no ‘ ne-far-ious’. I thought that was the main punchline(among many sub-punchlines) of this video, that the word of the week was mispronounced.

so was this a schtick? was he kidding? it felt like owen wilson is doing ham comedy. (it’s IN the computer!”)

i was a little slow as to why pitb has been such an ‘airdent’ supporter of booth. somewhere you guys have crossed over from hockey fans to hockey writers. hockey fans want a guy to put puck in the net but the writer…he wants material. and for the comedic hockey writer(a fair category for harrison and daniel) what could be more gold than booth. getting through the summer has got to be way easier with booth than without him. WAAYYYY EASIER!!!

also this vid goes a long way towards helping people understand booth. he’s not nefarious. he’s just… ‘defenceless’. and like many in his demographic he was a sitting duck for the god and gun club. “mom, there’s some people at the door and they’ve got books and guns….and rabbits!”

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